“It is now clear that Japan’s claims cannot be attained
through diplomatic means… At this moment, our Empire
stands on the threshold of glory or oblivion.”

—Japanese Foreign Minister Hideki Tojo, Dec., 2, 1941

_________________________

October of 1941 was a particularly troubling month for Washington
diplomats. They and media pundits watched events in Europe, but ominous depredations also were taking place in the opposite direction from
the United States. Four years earlier when in September, 1937, the Japanese indiscriminately bombed Nanking and committed other atrocities
in Chinese cities, President Roosevelt had used the dedication of Chicago’s Outer Drive Bridge as an opportunity to call for a “quarantine” of
aggressor nations. In this address he named no nations, but there was no
doubt he meant Japan, Italy, and Germany.1

The primary appeal of FDR’s speech on that occasion lay in the suggestion that he could overcome aggressor nations by peaceful means. Many
groups in America applauded the sentiment; newspapers and magazines
liked taking economic and financial steps against Japan but warned that
such actions should not permit the President to lead the nation into war.
The Catholic Association for International Peace declared its support for
a “concerted effort … to uphold the laws and principles of peace” without having to resort to war. The American Federation of Labor likewise

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